Cozy Dark emerging technology began work in 2010 as a skunkworks-style engineering firm and is registered with CCR and NSPIRES.
Our early engineering & design efforts have focused on orbital debris solutions and electrodynamic tether technology.
Zach Urbina founded Cozy Dark with the cooperation of technical, research, and academic colleagues in the Southern California AeroAstro community.
We also have a growing library of space science talks featuring Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin, astrophysicist Sean Carroll and more.
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58 posts tagged astrophysics
How do we actually use numbers to measure the universe? That’s precisely what the Royal Observatory Greenwich answers in this wonderful short animation, a teaser for a new exhibition titled Measuring the Universe: from the transit of Venus to the edge of the cosmos
Vast Structure of Satellite Galaxies Discovered: Do the Milky Way’s Companions Spell Trouble for Dark Matter? |
Astronomers from the University of Bonn in Germany have discovered a vast structure of satellite galaxies and clusters of stars surrounding our Galaxy, stretching out across a million light years. The work challenges the existence of dark matter, part of the standard model for the evolution of the universe.
PhD student and lead author Marcel Pawlowski reports the team’s findings in a paper in the journalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The Milky Way, the galaxy we live in, consists of around three hundred thousand million stars as well as large amounts of gas and dust arranged with arms in a flat disk that wind out from a central bar. The diameter of the main part of the Milky Way is about 100,000 light years, meaning that a beam of light takes 100,000 years to travel across it. A number of smaller satellite galaxies and spherical clusters of stars (so-called globular clusters) orbit at various distances from the main Galaxy.
Conventional models for the origin and evolution of the universe (cosmology) are based on the presence of ‘dark matter’, invisible material thought to make up about 23% of the content of the cosmos that has never been detected directly. In this model, the Milky Way is predicted to have far more satellite galaxies than are actually seen. continue reading
Evidence for Record-Breaking Nine Planet System |
A study by Mikko Tuomi, an astronomer at the University of Hertfordshire, has revealed that the planetary system around the star named HD 10180 may have more planets in its orbits than our own Solar system. Dr Tuomi carried out his analysis as part of the EU research network RoPACS, being led in Hertfordshire.
Originally reported to be orbited by seven planets in 2010, re-analysed data from the HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher) now indicates that the star has nine planets. This discovery is significant as most planetary systems discovered so far have far fewer planets. Located 130 light years away, the star is not within reach of foreseeable human space travel, but in astronomical distances, it is still considered to be in the solar neighbourhood.
The study, accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, verifies the existence of the previously announced seven planets and shows that there are likely to be two additional planets orbiting the star. The two newly detected signals are probably those of planets classified as hot super-Earths with orbital periods around the star of 10 and 68 days. continue reading
Black Holes Grow Feeding on Binary Star Partners |
A study led by a University of Utah astrophysicist found a new explanation for the growth of supermassive black holes in the center of most galaxies: they repeatedly capture and swallow single stars from pairs of stars that wander too close.
Using new calculations and previous observations of our own Milky Way and other galaxies, “we found black holes grow enormously as a result of sucking in captured binary star partners,” says physics and astronomy Professor Ben Bromley, lead author of the study, which is set for online publication April 2 inAstrophysical Journal Letters.
“I believe this has got to be the dominant method for growing supermassive black holes,” he adds. “There are two ways to grow a supermassive black hole: with gas clouds and with stars. Sometimes there’s gas and sometimes there is not. We know that from observations of other galaxies. But there are always stars.” continue reading
Dwarf Galaxies Provide New Insights On Dark Matter |
There’s more to the cosmos than meets the eye. About 80 percent of the matter in the universe is invisible to telescopes, yet its gravitational influence is manifest in the orbital speeds of stars around galaxies and in the motions of clusters of galaxies. Yet, despite decades of effort, no one knows what this “dark matter” really is. Many scientists think it’s likely that the mystery will be solved with the discovery of new kinds of subatomic particles, types necessarily different from those composing atoms of the ordinary matter all around us. The search to detect and identify these particles is underway in experiments both around the globe and above it.
Scientists working with data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have looked for signals from some of these hypothetical particles by zeroing in on 10 small, faint galaxies that orbit our own. Although no signals have been detected, a novel analysis technique applied to two years of data from the observatory’s Large Area Telescope (LAT) has essentially eliminated these particle candidates for the first time.
“In effect, the Fermi LAT analysis compresses the theoretical box where these particles can hide,” said Jennifer Siegal-Gaskins, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., and a member of the Fermi LAT Collaboration. continue reading
Explosive Stars With Good Table Manners |
An exploding star known as a Type Ia supernova plays a key role in our understanding of the universe. Studies of Type Ia supernovae led to the discovery of dark energy, which garnered the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. Yet the cause of this variety of exploding star remains elusive.
All evidence points to a white dwarf that feeds off its companions star, gaining mass, growing unstable, and ultimately detonating. But does that white dwarf draw material from a Sun-like star, an evolved red giant star, or from a second white dwarf? Or is something more exotic going on? Clues can be collected by searching for “cosmic crumbs” left over from the white dwarf’s last meal.
In two comprehensive studies of SN 2011fe — the closest Type Ia supernova in the past two decades — there is new evidence that indicates that the white dwarf progenitor was a particularly picky eater, leading scientists to conclude that the companion star was not likely to be a Sun-like star or an evolved giant.
“It’s hard to understand how a white dwarf could eat itself to death while showing such good table manners,” said Alicia Soderberg of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). continue reading
NASA’s Swift Narrows Down Origin of Important Supernova Class |
Studies using X-ray and ultraviolet observations from NASA’s Swift satellite provide new insights into the elusive origins of an important class of exploding star called Type Ia supernovae.
These explosions, which can outshine their galaxy for weeks, release large and consistent amounts of energy at visible wavelengths. These qualities make them among the most valuable tools for measuring distance in the universe. Because astronomers know the intrinsic brightness of Type Ia supernovae, how bright they appear directly reveals how far away they are.
“For all their importance, it’s a bit embarrassing for astronomers that we don’t know fundamental facts about the environs of these supernovae,” said Stefan Immler, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “Now, thanks to unprecedented X-ray and ultraviolet data from Swift, we have a clearer picture of what’s required to blow up these stars.” continue reading
Gas-Guzzling Black Holes Eat Two Courses at a Time |
Astronomers have put forward a new theory about why black holes become so hugely massive — claiming some of them have no ‘table manners’, and tip their ‘food’ directly into their mouths, eating more than one course simultaneously.
Researchers from the UK and Australia investigated how some black holes grow so fast that they are billions of times heavier than the sun.
The team from the University of Leicester (UK) and Monash University in Australia sought to establish how black holes got so big so fast.
Professor Andrew King from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, said: “Almost every galaxy has an enormously massive black hole in its center. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has one about four million times heavier than the sun. But some galaxies have black holes a thousand times heavier still. We know they grew very quickly after the Big Bang.”
“These hugely massive black holes were already full—grown when the universe was very young, less than a tenth of its present age.” continue reading
